US crime drama in which a Detroit teenager becomes the FBI's youngest ever informant.
It's an entertaining ride, but the lack of a knock-out punch lessens the impact of the careful work all round.
A patchy follow-up to the searing ’71 from director Yann Demange, but one which tells a compelling true story and offers a treat of a supporting turn from Matthew McConaughey.
The rise and fall of teen drug dealer Rick Wershe Jr is explored in White Boy Rick, the new film from Yann Demange. It looks great, but unfortunately lacks the intensity of Demange's previous film, Belfast thriller ’71.
Mostly good fun with some bold performances.
What’s missing is perhaps a sense of the wider social cost of Reaganite drug policies. The issue is not that the film focuses on a white kid, but that it doesn’t seem much interested in the black lives hit disproportionately hard by the war on drugs.
Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Jason Leigh can’t save this uninvolving true-life drama set in crime-ridden 80s Detroit.
General release. Check local listings for show times.
RSS feed of Cinema reviews